Stop Moving My Cheese

I wish that the powers that be, and by this I mean the Higher Power, would stop moving my cheese. Any of you that have read or been forced to read the book know exactly what I mean. It seems that the last few years have been an exercise in my adaptability.

A brief explanation - I started a new position in January for AT&T. I am working as a consultant on a new wireless product they are planning to offer to their business customers. I am here a month and what happens -- SBC buys AT&T causing this project to be terminated.

Now I am flexible and this type of activity usually does not bother me, but it seems that this cheese moving has been going on for some time in my life. I am not asking for much, just leave the cheese in one location for a little while.

Nowadays the economy and the times are causing so much instability in everyone's life, that we all need to be more adaptable and roll with the ever changing life. My parents spent thirty years working for the same company, never having to change jobs or deal with lay offs due to mergers and acquisitions. I don't think that anyone today has much chance in that happening. It may be our own fault. I know when I worked during the Internet boom -- we all say that like it was a hundred years ago -- that all I wanted was to find a position with a company, get my stock options, let the boom happen and retire early. I didn't care if the company got gobbled up by one of the monster software companies...hell I hoped for it. Now, between the mergers and jobs being exported overseas, we are all hoping to just find a stable job with a paycheck we can count on.

The issue then gets compounded by the fact that there are just to many people having to look for work nowadays. I work next to one of the PeopleSoft buildings that just lost 3,000 jobs due to their merger with Oracle. Now AT&T and SBC think that 25,000 people will lose jobs over this merger. That just means that there will be a boatload more people applying for the same five jobs that I will be applying for. I am not sure what exactly happened to this country over the last five years or so, but it sure seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

I guess for now I will continue to try and adapt to the new America. I will again venture out and try and find some new cheese. I hope I don't run into to many other of you rats in this maze.